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Wednesday, February 13, 2013

A Charity Project: Butterflies for Children's Memorial Hospital

Back in January, the Jr. High art teacher and I began a project for Children's Memorial Hospital. The butterflies were made for a service to be held in the Spring.

As explained in a previous post, the service will be a time for families and staff to come together to honor and celebrate the lives of children they have cared for and who have died. The butterflies have become a special tradition at the service where families are able to pick out a butterfly that uniquely "speaks" to them. Butterflies are commonly used as a symbol in a child' death, paralleling that even though it was for a brief moment, we feel blessed to have known them.

After creating over 200 clay butterflies, we fired the clay, and had two seperate after school dates available for students to glaze the fired pieces.

While working on the butterflies, we asked the students why they wanted to participate in the charity project. Many students said it was because they wanted to bring a smile to the family's faces when they saw the butterflies. Other students said they wanted to help others out who have lost loved ones.

The butterflies will be mailed out within the next month to the hospital in time for the memorial service in April. Thank you to all the students who had participated to make this project happen.